


Two Ghosts

by intern_at_german_chapterhouse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (and they get their hugs), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canonical Character Death, Death, Funeral, Funerals, Grief/Mourning, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Inspired by a Harry Styles Song, POV Remus Lupin, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Pre-Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Sirius Black Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 04:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30015840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intern_at_german_chapterhouse/pseuds/intern_at_german_chapterhouse
Summary: When Sirius shows up at Remus' flat - the flat they used to share - he's different.And so is Remus.It's like they barely know each other.They're both like ghosts.Inspired by Two Ghosts by Harry Styles.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 17





	Two Ghosts

They are like ghosts.

Two ghosts, surrounded by nothing but silence, so thick and heavy it threatens to suffocate them. Empty inside, hollowed out by the horrors of the past.

It's written all over them.

Remus barely looks better off than Sirius, he thinks.

He can only take looking at bits and pieces of the man he used to know so well.

Sirius' lips are still full and red, but they're in a constant frown.

His eyes are still the same icy blue, but the spark behind them is missing. The blue looks greyer, dull.

Sirius' hair is greyer too. It wasn't that obvious when he first stood before Remus, with all the dirt of prison and living in a cave for a year covering him. But now, with his hair still wet from the shower, it's so clearly streaked with grey.

He's wearing one of Remus' shirts, one of the few from  _ before _ . One of the shirts Sirius bought him. It's white and old and the tattoos are barely hidden by the thin fabric. So many tattoos Remus has never seen before.

They're the same people who used to live in this flat together, years ago.

But at the same time, they're not.

Sirius looks so small, so tired, Remus is about to reach out and hug him.

But he can't.

Sirius shrinks away from every movement in his direction, as if Remus is about to hit him.

They're just standing there, looking at each other. As if hit by a stunning spell, Remus can't seem to look away.

The fridge behind Remus is still open, as is the bathroom door behind Sirius.

The flat is almost completely dark, except for the light spilling out from behind Remus and the moonlight from outside. They wash the one-bedroom apartment in white, ice-cold light.

Or maybe it just feels that way.

Remus still can't tear his eyes away from Sirius' dark silhouette, but out of the corner of his eyes, he tries to take in the flat. Tries to look at it through Sirius' eyes.

The couch he bought ten years ago after the one they'd gotten straight after Hogwarts.

The empty wall that used to be filled with pictures of them. And Lily and James, Peter, Mary and Marlene, all their friends at Hogwarts and the Order.

The record collection that has grown and almost doubled since Sirius had been in the flat the last time. 

The flat looks so much smaller than it usually appears to be. After over a decade of living there by himself, Remus can't imagine sharing it with someone, it doesn't seem like it would be enough space for the two of them.

But it used to be. It used to be all they needed.

Sirius can't seem to look at him any longer.

He looks to the ground and the spell is broken.

Carefully, Remus turns around and closes the fridge door. It's almost empty anyway, save for a tub of butter and a lonely sausage. And the almost empty bottle of Firewhiskey. The one he once drunkenly decided not to finish.

With his hand stretched out to reach the handle, Remus looks down at his arm, where his first tattoo used to be.

The wolf scratched it up the first moon after that Halloween, nothing is left but a big ugly scar.

Back then, waking up from that moon, the first he'd spent  _ alone _ , Remus had thought that the scar was rather fitting.

It didn't actually erase the memory though.

The plan had been to each get the same tattoo.

Four animals, chasing each other around their forearms. The wolf with the dog right behind, followed by the stag and the rat.

Sirius had already had a few tattoos by then, James only had one. The summer after they left Hogwarts, they'd gone to a muggle tattoo shop. Because he'd known what was coming and because he'd just been the coolest of them (at least Remus had thought so), Sirius went first. Then James and then Remus.

Lily had held their hands through it all. Maybe because she had hated the sound of the tattoo gun, maybe because she'd actually wanted to calm them down. She'd also promised to help them charm the tattoos so they'd move.

Peter had been supposed to go last, but he'd chickened out. Back then, they'd all made fun of him for it (with Lily trying to stop them and comforting Pete).

Now...

Well, looking back, knowing what he knows now, Remus vies a lot of things very differently.

Had Peter already been working with the Deatheaters? Had he truly just been scared?

Remus doesn't know.

To be honest, he doesn't truly care.

They dance around each other, settle down in the biggest room in their old flat, Sirius tenderly sits down on one of the two chairs at the small table while Remus lets himself fall onto the couch.

Sirius jerks his chin at the couch.

"That's new."

They're the first words Sirius has spoken since showing up at Remus' doorstep an hour ago.

The first words he's heard him say since the Shrieking Shack.

Trying to win some time to make sure his voice doesn't give out on him, Remus lets his hand run over the blue couch before he looks back up at Sirius.

"Yeah, had to get a new one after the old one got dirty."

He could tell Sirius that he threw up on the old couch after drinking too much one day.

He  _ could _ tell him that he set the old one on fire after trying to clean it up and being unable to do so.

He  _ could _ tell him that.

But he won't.

Sirius nods and Remus nods and he feels so stupid.

This isn't what they should be talking about.

There are so many important things that need to be said, things they need to clear up, things he needs to say out loud for the very first time after keeping them bottled up for years.

The four animals are still chasing each other around Sirius' left forearm.

His right is covered is different runes Remus doesn't know.

There's more black shimmering through the white shirt covering his chest.

Remus used to know every inch of Sirius' body. Now it's like he's looking at a stranger.  


After Remus had offered Sirius a shower and fresh clothes, he had just taken off his shirt, right there in front of the door. He hadn't cared that Remus was looking straight at him. Not because it was Remus, not because the other man had seen him undress a thousand times before. Simply because he doesn't seem to care.

Only when he saw Remus looking down, away from him, had he turned around and walked into the bathroom.

The old Sirius wouldn't have taken off his clothes in front of someone he hadn't seen in over a decade.

The old Sirius hadn't wanted anyone to see the scars his family had left on his back.

The old Sirius didn't have so many scars the ones from his childhood weren't even distinguishable anymore.

This Sirius is covered in scars and tattoos and dirt.

Remus is wondering which one of them has more scars now.

The one who spent 12 years in prison or the one who spent those years tearing himself to shreds.

Remus is still watching Sirius when he speaks up again.

He's trying to figure out if the other man is holding himself differently or if he just forgot the way Sirius used to sit, his mannerisms and movements.

But when Sirius' head jerks up from looking down at his fidgeting hands, Remus is sure he's different.

Every movement is sharp, uncalculated, wild. Nothing like the teenager still influenced by his noble upbringing.

"Did you go to the funeral?"

For a second, Remus doesn't know who he's talking about.

There had been so many funerals, so many deaths.

They all bled together in his mind, they're all the same.

And he can barely remember the one Sirius is asking about.

"Yes." He doesn't know how to say more about that horrible day.

His memories are mostly snapshots.

Mary slapping him for showing up drunk. Mary fixing his suit. The people standing outside the cemetery, cheering, celebrating. The house, half of it blasted to kingdom come. The rain falling and falling and falling.

The sun, hidden behind dark clouds, peaking out ever so slightly, as if it knew it wasn't fair for the sun to shine when Lily and James were dead.

The gravestone. One for both of them. The dates, so close to each other, too close.

The flowers. Lilies.

Remus laughing at the stupid idiot buying lilies for Lily. Didn't they know that she hated lilies?

Mary holding onto him. Or holding him? Mary leaving, telling him she won't see him for a while. Mary walking away.

Going home alone. Too drunk to make it to the green couch or the unmade bed. Sleeping on the floor, cold and miserable and alone.

So alone.

And the people. All the people there, looking at him.

Judging him.

Hadn't he known? Shouldn't he have known?

How dare he showing up, drunk no less. He should have prevented it. He should have been there.

And for the first time in years, Remus feels like opening up the old bottle in his fridge.

He hasn't had a drop of alcohol in so long.

He didn't drink the bottle after hearing about his father's death. Or after Dumbledore came to visit him, to tell him that Sirius had gotten out. Not even after meeting Sirius at Hogwarts.

But he also hadn't thought of the funeral in years.

And thinking of one opens the flood gates to the rest of them.

He can't see Sirius through the tears filling his eyes, but he can see more and more snapshots from then. Before and after.

Waking up the day after burying Lily and James, neck stiff and hurting, throwing up on himself and washing his mouth out with another swig of Firewhiskey. Scourgifying his suit because it's the only one he has.

Another headstone, smaller, only for one person. Peter's mother, weeping, crying, burying an empty coffin.

And Marlene's funeral. All of them there, holding on to each other. Lily on his right, holding Harry, Sirius on his left. James' arm around Lily.

Dirt falling onto coffin after coffin, his friends by his side, mourning together.

And then, going through it all by himself.

So many funerals.

So much death, so much loss.

And now they're supposed to go through it again.

Voldemort is back and the war is on again.

Remus doesn't think they can do it again.

He's heard this story before and he knows how it'll end.

They can't be a part of it.

Just look at them!

Sitting there, too scared to look at the person they once loved the most.

How can Dumbledore think they could be of any help?

Has he not seen either of them?

Sirius, barely more than bones, tattoos and scars covering his white, sickly-looking skin.

Remus, fresh cuts still bleeding into the bandages he put over them the morning before.

The wild look in Sirius' eyes, the vacant one that hasn't left Remus' in so long.

They're skin and bones and scars and loss and hurt.

They're two ghosts of their old selves.

And in the silence, Remus listens for the heartbeat.

The most familiar and unchanging sound of Sirius.

Sirius, alive, sitting at their table, so close to him.

And with the first tear that falls into his lap, he lets the feeling back in.

The love and longing he's felt every day.

The love he hated himself for for so long.

The longing he tried to wash away with alcohol and other people.

The feelings the wolf punished him for every month.

And as the love and the longing and the suddenly warm look in Sirius' eyes fill him, he begins to feel like he used to.

And when Sirius gets up, walks over to him, sits down on the couch next to him and hesitantly hugs him, he knows.

He knows how they'll do it.

It won't be easy, but they'll be there for each other. Like they used to be, like they couldn't be. This time, they'll talk.

This time, their trust won't be blind, it'll be earned.

But that is the future.

And all the rest is in the past.

What counts is this.

Here and now.

They're two ghosts that will have to find back to life together.


End file.
